


Red as Blood, Black as Ebony

by JackOfNone



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Bloodplay, Creepy, Dreams, F/M, Fairy Tales, Masochism, Masturbation, Porn Battle, Sadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackOfNone/pseuds/JackOfNone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lilie is a storyteller, too, of grotesque and beautiful stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red as Blood, Black as Ebony

Lilie is a writer. Not in the traditional sense, of course -- she hasn't ever written anything down. Not yet. But as she learns her dances and criss-crosses the ballet academy on her daily errands, her mind is a constant tapestry of narration.

Once upon a time, she thinks, watching Ahiru skulking towards the boys' dormitory when no one else is looking, there was a peasant girl who fell tragically in love with a beautiful prince. When Ahiru slips back through the common room at night, her footsteps quiet and her face grave, and Lilie smiles and wonders if she was spurned by Mytho, or if she encountered his cruel, fiery-tempered roommate.

It's a wonderful story, in her head -- the earnest peasant girl, the stark castle walls, the fierce palace guardian who set upon her with fire and sword, and the handsome prince at the top of the tower who never noticed the drama below him, though the poor girl was drowning in her own sorrow.

Drosselmeyer, she thinks, would be pleased with it.

Between classes, Lilie goes to the library. Her eyes glide over long histories and scholarly treatises on the arts to find her favorite section, tucked away in the corner of the stacks. She has been here many times before, and knows the books by heart, but still she comes nearly every day to re-acquaint herself with her favorites. And her favorites are all here, collected on one shelf and under one name.

Lilie loves fairy tales, but none have ever touched her like Drosselmeyer's books. Other authors are too bland, too pretty, too obsessed with golden-haired princesses and white horses. Lilie could care less about the happily-ever-afters of virtuous girls and brave boys, preferring instead to dwell on evil queens, cannibal ogres, and big bad wolves.

Drosselmeyer's stories are not like the others. Even his princesses are monsters under their skin, their hair bristling with black feathers and their eyes cold and cruel and beautiful; or, if they were truly good at heart, they are doomed by uncaring stars to painful destinies. When she reads of the Prince shattering his own heart, she can nearly feel the cold steel sliding through her own breast and hear the Prince's final cry of perfect, all-consuming agony.

Lilie reads of the death agonies of the Knight and the Prince with trembling hands, dreams up terrible punishments for the raven princess, and leaves the library with her face flushed red.

In her daydreams, Drosselmeyer is a handsome young man with sharp, dark eyes and long fingers, ink-stained.

The day after their first lesson en pointe, Lilie sits with Pique in their shared room, bandaging her friend's bleeding feet with a slowness that is as much fascination as care. Lilie considers the situation from the viewpoint of her beloved master of the macabre, and imagines the story of a girl who dances herself to death -- or perhaps the tale of a wicked stepmother whose cruelty ended in red-hot iron shoes.

At night, she dreams of Drosselmeyer -- her Drosselmeyer, breathtakingly handsome in his finest black frock coat and a devilish smile. He writes his stories in blood, this Drosselmeyer -- the blood of beautiful princesses and clever miller's sons -- with a black raven's quill. His latest work is the Tale of Savage Princess Lilie, but he has no need of any ink. He writes it on her naked back with slow, loving strokes of his razor-sharp pen.

Lilie awakes suddenly to the chime of clocktower bells, writhing in imagined pain, and, gasping, fumbles under her nightgown with one hand.

The next day she is in the library again, and when the student ballet troupe performs Giselle at the end of spring, Lilie dances as the vengeful queen of ghosts, pale in her makeup, her white arms and white shoes curved like the blades of a scythe.


End file.
